New Study Confirms Work Email Is Destroying Your Mental Health

When word got out in June that France was trying to pass a labor law including a "right to disconnect" clause (read: a ban on work-related emails after-hours), we all downloaded DuoLingo and began silently plotting our moves.

Now, a new study by three U.S. professors examining the effect of after-hours email expectations concludes that, yes, being "on" for work all the time damages our mental health, particularly leading to "emotional exhaustion" and hindering work-family balance.

The study–led by Liuba Belkin of Lehigh University, William Becker of Virginia Tech, and Samantha A. Conroy of Colorado State University–collected data from 297 working American adults. In a paper titled Exhausted, but Unable to Disconnect: The impact of Email-related Organizational Expectations on Work-family Balance, the researchers outlined how company culture promoting expectations to respond to after-hours emails are a significant job stressor.

"Email is notoriously known to be the impediment of the recovery process. Its accessibility contributes to experience of work overload since it allows employees to engage in work as if they never left the workspace, and at the same time, inhibits their ability to psychologically detach from work-related issues via continuous connectivity," the authors write.

It's not about how much time you're spending on emails after-hours either, but rather how your organization normalizes "anticipatory stress" (formally defined as the "constant state of anxiety and uncertainty as a result of perceived or anticipated threats") aka that feeling when you're always checking your phone for an email from your boss on a Sunday night...and then you answer it.

Email is notoriously known to be the impediment of the recovery process.

"Satisfaction with the balance between work and family domains is important for individual health and well-being, while individual inability to successfully balance roles in those domains can lead to anxiety and depression, lowered satisfaction with both work and family roles, absenteeism, decreased job productivity and organizational commitment and greater turnover," the authors stress.

We could also try to shift our attitudes about work emails and getting to "inbox zero." Take it from ELLE.com's own editorial director Leah Chernikoff, who wrote in a recent essay:

I devote two to four hours every Sunday to going through my inbox in an attempt to get to zero unread [...]And I'll never stop feeling like I'm not getting enough done. But what I can try to do is be gentler on myself. I can let go of this failure that is not really a failure but a byproduct of my industry (and, increasingly, most industries) and the way that business gets done (i.e., with a fire hose of information aimed directly at my inbox at all times). I'm never going to get it all done, and I feel fine about it.

Kristina RodulfoBeauty DirectorKristina Rodulfo is the Beauty Director of Women's Health—she oversees beauty coverage across print and digital and is an expert in product testing, identifying trends, and exploring the intersections of beauty, wellness, and culture.

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